"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
I couldn't find any resolution information on the I image units
One thing that can't be disputed about inkjet CTS I-Image ST and up from M&R is that Danny won a crap ton of awards with screens all produced on the InkJet soooooooo, like mentioned above, go for what fits you best, but those awards speak volumes on the quality of screens being produced from the I-Image units.
Quote from: screenprintguy on November 30, 2016, 05:47:33 PMOne thing that can't be disputed about inkjet CTS I-Image ST and up from M&R is that Danny won a crap ton of awards with screens all produced on the InkJet soooooooo, like mentioned above, go for what fits you best, but those awards speak volumes on the quality of screens being produced from the I-Image units. You could say the same about film honestly. The masking medium/mechanism needs to be at an acceptable level of resolution and d max but it doesn't make a print work, that all happens up and down the line imo. There are side by side's out there that would show you the opposite regarding wax v. ink but you can make any one thing look a little better than another if you want. True side by side comparisons are hard to come by. I totally get your point! My point was, for the guy asking, and anyone looking into CTS, the fact that Inkjet CTS machines produce award winning shirts should put anyone at ease about the wonder or worry if the inkjet is "good". We can get super technical under a microscope about anything, but honestly, when was the last time anyone's customers said, hey, I want to see the dots on your stencil before you print my shirts, and I want to see them under the microscope? And ifffff, someone has a customer like that, they may want to run for the hills because that's the customer that is insane. I understand that even microscopic differences eventually translate to larger final result differences, but in this case, even judges at shows aren't seeing any difference in final prints, if they did, the shirts wouldn't win. I mean at the end of the day, that is what we are right, t-shirt printers. There are plennnnnty of shops out there with the best of the best of the best pumping out crap, so it's really up to the individuals to make that final difference. I'm not saying one is better than the other, like Dave said, their are points on both sides, what I'm saying is, like anything in our industry, performance, reliability and support are KEY when investing in a tool that you need to rely on day to day. M&R saw that when starting out with Epson based units and re-wrote what they were doing by going with a "ground up" design for that performance and reliability reason. I can't say that about other machines simply based off of other people's experiences having to wait weeks on end for parts or someone to show up to fix ect. Maybe some companies have improved that, but it's a huge consideration on what becomes such a HUGE part of a shop's day to day operation. No screens, no shirts, that's the bottom line. So, making sure you have that support, like I said is key. I personally feel a lot more secure having a machine that is supported by the company who I bought it from, who makes it themselves rather than something labeled over and over by a brand that relabels for a company that was built in another country by another company. If local support and parts are always on hand for other brands, then that's awesome, but how do you find that out really? At any rate, like TH said in his resurrection of this thread, he wanted individual opinions and experiences so I don't want any of my comments to seem arguementiive, I'm just pointing out my view and experience being with CTS for over 4 years now. Thx Alex, that sounds like a sweet spot resolution and could be a part of why some rave about ink CTS perhaps? Aside from Kiwo's latest offering none of the wax units run higher than 600dpi and wax can outperform ink I think at that lower res, it kind of softens up the dot shape, but all units will perform best at 900dpi and up.
I'm with ya screenprintguy, any unit will perform well in almost any environment, no need to shy away from either technology I'd say. Pick which unit/brand you like and enjoy, any of them beat an epson and film. However, I would have to disagree that M&R built the i image "ground up", it's clearly based upon the lawson, right down to the rip, and that core unit is clearly made by another group apart from both those companies. Same goes for the Olec, Douthitt, Kiwo I-jet I Exile Spyder I and II- basic chassis and setup is made by one company in all cases. It's what each company downstream does to improve, develop and support their model that makes the difference between them. So with that said I do agree that that's where the M&R shines- service. But it's not like they invented it, none of the offerings were ground up built that I'm aware of but were heavily re-built and improved in some cases. If they were truly built from scratch they'd likely cost even more than they do now. Your available offerings in the 60k cts range right now boil down to:Lawson/M&R Ricoh printhead ink units, 1200dpi (is that the max?), 1-3 printheadsDouthitt/Exile Fuji printhead wax units, 600dpi (current functional max res), 1 printhead, bi-d option on Exile units.Kiwo XTS Xerox printhead wax units 1200dpi max, 1 printhead, not sure about bi-d but with 880 nozzles might not be necessary. Another major brand will be offering a version of it as well, not sure if either are out of beta yet or not.
On the other hand, any (most? all?) inkjet printers use ink that dries in the heads and requires higher humidity to avoid clogging. This automatically takes it out of the dark room as they need to be operated at lower relative humidity. If your CTS needs to go into the the dark room, this could be a problem.pierre
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Topic: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros) (Read 161712 times)
